20 episodes

A limited series, science fiction/horror audio drama podcast, follows the arrival of two xenoarcheologists on a small world orbiting a binary star. But what starts off as an expedition to survey the planet and the remains of a lost alien civilization, turns into a monstrous game of cat and mouse, as the two scientists are left to face the creatures that killed the planet in the first place. Told from two alternating perspectives, Janus Descending is an experience of crossing timelines, as one character describes the nightmare from end to beginning, and the other, from beginning to the end.

Janus Descending No Such Thing Productions

- 4.5, 84 Ratings

4.5 out of 5

84 Ratings

Amazing

At first I was bit put off by the format of the show (Chel is in chrono order whereas Peter is in reverse). But after the second episode, I was fully invested. FULLY. The writing is spectacular here- lush imagery weaved all throughout, painting both beautiful and horrifying pictures in my mind. The actors did a beautiful job of conveying the tragedy and love of this story. The soaring musical score was perfect. My only complaint was the static between dialogues. Ugh, that got seriously annoying by the 7th episode. Looking forward to listening to more Jordan Cobb works for sure.

Middling

There were some interesting ideas, but the plot was meh. All the action scenes are unclear as to what specifically is going on, like listening to tv in another room. Uncompressed voices and sound effects makes listening a chore riding the volume knob trying to balance not blowing your eardrums with static or Chel screaming and hearing when chel is saying when she’s not screaming.

On the plus side, the antagonist is a cool concept, and the voice acting is good. I just felt there was about 2 episodes worth of content and a lot of interesting unexplored territory. Not a waste of time, but I’d put it down your list.